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Del HC allows CLAT appeal, will look into permanent CLAT convenor but not grades

post CLAT hangover
post CLAT hangover

The first writ against Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2012 should not have been dismissed by the Delhi high court, said a division bench of the court admitting a letters patent appeal against the dismissal today.

Justices Rajiv Shakdher and Vipin Sanghi sought a response from the 2012 CLAT convenor NLU Jodhpur on the actions taken by the law school on the representations against the examination process made by candidates this year, confirmed appellants’ counsel Aditi Bhat.

She added that the court was not inclined to re-hold the examination or recalculate the marks.

The court admitted the appeal to look into the prayer in the writ asking for the constitution of a permanent CLAT convening committee instead of continuing with the current system of rotating the convenorship between the participating national law schools.

“In the next hearing on 23 July, the court will mostly restrict itself to this aspect. The case is going to be argued on the larger issue,” explained Bhat.

Co-counsel Gopal Sankaranarayanan said: “The single judge was wrong in believing that we were coming to court only on the issue of declaration of result, whereas our objection was not against the result being declared. We had asked for the constitution of a permanent body to institutionalise CLAT, which was not premature”.

He told Legally India that it had been “blatantly wrong” to dismiss the writ as there was a larger peril involved than just the current examination, and that it extended to a longer period and to issues concerning other similar exams as well.

“As far as NLU Jodhpur is concerned, some injustice has resulted. Representations were made to them but they gave no responses, took no steps.”

“If before declaring the results they would have taken the representations into account, it would have the changed the final names in the list. But they didn’t make any changes despite giving a solemn representation to the court. This was also challenged before the division bench,” added Sankaranarayanan.

Three CLAT 2012 candidates Ujjwal Madan, Shubham Sinha, and Osho Donnie Ashok had petitioned in the Delhi high court against NLU Jodhpur, the Bar Council of India, and the ministry of human resource development for questioning examinees on topics which were out of the syllabus prescribed by the CLAT committee for 2012, on 24 May 2012.

Two days later, and a day prior to the declaration of the exam’s results, Justice Sunil Gaur had dismissed the writ in limine.

On being informed that the CLAT committee was already discussing solutions, Gaur had observed that the petition was premature and that the proper course for the petitioners would be to make representations to the CLAT convenor and seek judicial remedy after the exam’s result was declared.

Click here to download full draft of the Letters Patent appeal

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